Opposable Thumbs —

Wii U review update: Nintendo finally has a decent online experience

There are some rough edges, but it's still a huge step into the present.

eShop

Enlarge/ The Wii U eShop has an Indie Game section just below the fold, a nice bit of promotion for games that could really use it.

Nintendo’s new eShop is a big step up from the much more slapdash digital storefront of the Wii. For one thing, everything loads much faster, in a custom layout that’s much cleaner and easier to navigate than the Wii Shop Channel’s HTML-based pages. For another, the system does away with the crazy “Wii Points” virtual currency, instead letting you use a credit card to pay for purchases in normal cash. This means you can also simply pay the precise amount you need for each purchase as you make it, rather than buying "Wii Points" in bulk and having extra funny money lying around. It's an obvious but necessary change.

Unlike the Wii Shop Channel, the Wii U shop allows for background downloads and even makes it easy to monitor download progress on the GamePad while playing another game. Once a game is fully downloaded, though, you have to wait through a short install process before playing it. This stops you from doing anything else with the system for a few minutes. I found the whole download process pretty similar to that on the PS3, but a little less convenient than that on the Xbox 360.

The eShop offers a wide range of retail games for download at the same price as going to the store. Quite a few third-party launch titles were not available as of press time, though, including Mass Effect 3, Arkham City, Skylanders Giants, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

Web browser

The Wii U Web browser is the best Web browser I’ve used on a gaming console—for what that's worth. Standard HTML sites load quickly and display nicely both on the TV and the GamePad, and features like bookmarks and tabbed browsing work just fine. The GamePad is a natural fit for navigation, letting you pan, zoom, and click links quite easily with the stylus. You can also use the shoulder buttons to switch between tabs and move through your history, which I found surprisingly useful. There's even an optional, tilt-based quick-scroll feature to get through massive pages quickly. Nintendo has obviously put a lot of thought into designing a browser to fit its unique hardware.

Even though the Wii U’s dedicated YouTube app isn’t yet available, I was surprised to find that the YouTube website worked perfectly on the Wii U browser, as did other sites that support HTML5 videos (the browser doesn’t support Flash). Videos open up in a convenient player window, which can be minimized to a small control bar at the top of the GamePad screen. This allows you to load up a video on the TV screen and continue to browse other pages and sites on the GamePad while it plays, an unexpected and useful feature.

Sites like Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook work just fine on the browser, but the latter two load up in mobile versions that are ill-suited for both the touchscreen and the TV screen. More complex HTML5 sites like photo editor Mugtug Darkroom and music-streamer site HypeM.com loaded, but were unusable on the Wii U browser. I was able to load a few simple HTML5 games, but without a keyboard or a browser that correctly registers mouse clicks and drags, these games were practically unplayable. The same goes for services like JSNES, the Javascript NES emulator that has no way to register inputs from the GamePad (and only runs at 9FPS on the Wii U in any case).

You can put up a virtual privacy curtain on the TV screen to hide which websites you’re viewing on the GamePad. Unfortunately, you can’t use the Web browser on the GamePad while actively using another app on the TV screen (though you can pause any other app and load up the Web browser for quick reference).

Backward compatibility

While I’ve run into my fair share of issues trying to get content off my old Wii and onto my new Wii U, I’m still able to play retail Wii discs on the new system. This content isn’t integrated very smoothly with the rest of the Wii U, though. To play regular Wii games, first you have to open up a “Wii Channel” that acts like an emulated version of the Wii hardware. Then you have to switch from the Wii U GamePad to a Wii Remote to navigate this channel and load the disc-based game.

The whole process takes an extra minute or two on top of game-loading time and is unnecessarily cumbersome. Using the Wii Channel also means you can’t easily get to features like your Wii U Friends List or Web Browser while playing Wii games. You also can't play Wii games on the GamePad, which seems like a no-brainer feature that would let you free up the TV screen for other uses.

If you were already using component cables to output your Wii games in 480p, playing those games on the Wii U won’t be much of a graphical upgrade. If you’re used to the 480i image from the standard Wii composite cables, though, the resolution upgrade is quite noticeable on an HD screen. Other than that, the Wii Channel is a perfectly functional simulation of the original Wii, with the only notable omission being the missing support for GameCube controllers (which can't be plugged into the new system) or games.

Odds and ends

The native Netflix app is functional, but the ability to scroll through your queue while something plays on the big screen is not all that useful. Videos look quite nice on the GamePad, but the built-in speakers weren’t loud enough to overcome the sounds of dinner preparation in my kitchen, which limited its usefulness.

Every game that uses any online features required a one-time downloadable update that took five to 15 minutes to download. Thankfully, I could play the basic version of these games while the update downloaded in the background and install it the next time I decided to play.

Text entry using the stylus on the Wii U GamePad is a lot more convenient than any on-screen keyboard I’ve ever used on a game system, but still less convenient than the multitouch keyboards on most smartphones and tablets.

The Good

Online features in general are a huge improvement over the Wii

WaraWara Plaza is a cute way to find other Wii U users

Miiverse is well-moderated and full of focused content

No more Friend Codes!

You can actually connect with interesting strangers pretty easily

Well-designed online shop

Surprisingly functional Web browser

The Bad

Friend activity is shown with a blinking GamePad light, rather than an informative on-screen message

Setting up a Friend List is a bit confusing

Navigating to common online features could be easier

Video chat is nothing special

Wii backward compatibility is poorly integrated with the rest of the system

No integrated audio chat across the system

The Ugly

Revised verdict: If the Wii U doesn't bring Nintendo into the present, it at least brings it into the recent past. While some of its features are still a bit rough around the edges, the system elevates Nintendo's console offerings close to even with current consoles from Sony and Microsoft in many important ways (including graphics and online functions) and offers an innovative well-constructed touchscreen GamePad that is already showing promise for new gameplay experiences. While it's hard to say how well the system will age in the face of coming competition, the system is definitely a legitimate contender in the current console environment.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl